Inequality is normal, says Thomas Sowell in his new book, “Discrimination and Disparities.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Sowell explains what Americans most misunderstand about disparity, the extent to which discrimination accounts for inequality, and why in his late 80s he has retired from writing newspaper columns but he keeps on writing books.

She was the great dissident of Communist China, and LianXi tells her tale in “Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, LianXi describes how Christian faith inspired Lin Zhao to speak out against to totalitarianism, how she paid for her opposition with her life, and why her remarkable writings have managed to survive.

Ray Sprigle embarked on an undercover mission of journalism in 1948, and Bill Steigerwald describes what Sprigle found in “30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story that Exposed the Jim Crow South.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Steigerwald describes Sprigle’s reporting, whether his journalism was truly objective, and how Sprigle’s work differs from the the 1961 book “Black Like Me,” by John Howard Griffin.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Carr explains why he wanted to write fiction, how his experience as a Navy SEAL shaped his story, and why he has one of his novel’s villains read a book by Brad Thor.

Love, family, and friendship are the ingredients for a worthy life, but these days they’re under assault, says Leon Kass, author of “Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Kass explains why so many people find it hard to live meaningful lives, how much of the blame goes to the rise of secularism, and how listeners might begin to recover the things our culture has lost.

Both liberals and conservatives are wrong about the ultimate source of the 2008 financial meltdown, write David L. Bahnsen in “Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Bahnsen explains why neither the actions of Wall Street nor Big Government can explain what happened and what Americans can do to recover their sense of self-government.

Bryan Caplan says that everything you think you know about education is wrong in his new book, “The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.”

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Caplan explains why he as a Ph.D. holder wanted to blow the whistle on today’s schooling, describes how he’d rebuild the education system from scratch, and offers advice to parents who just want to help their kids.

Do we let metrics run our lives? That’s the worry of Jerry Z. Muller, author of The Tyranny of Metrics.

In a 10-minutes conversation with The Bookmonger, Muller explains the use and abuse of metrics, how he as a history professor became interested in the subject, and how ordinary people can tell the difference between good and bad metrics.

A struggle between innovation and conservation will define the 21st century, says Charles C. Mann in The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Mann describes the ideas of Norman Borlaug (the wizard) and William Vogt (the prophet), explains why their clash defined our era, and how studying the debates of the recent past can help us understand the future.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Hamburger describes the problem of the administrative state, why Woodrow Wilson deserves much of the blame, and whether President Trump is providing a solution.

Novelist Bernard Cornwell writes about Shakespeare and his mysterious brother, Richard, in .

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Cornwell describes his interest in the cutthroat world of Elizabethan theater, why the Puritans hated plays, and his own experience as an actor at the Monomoy Theatre on Cape Cod.

Patrick Deneen isn’t talking about merely Democrats and progressives in his new book with a bracing title, Why Liberalism Failed — he’s talking about the American political regime, including conservatives.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Deneen describes why he thinks liberalism’s days are numbered, how Americans have become more individualist and more statist at the same time, and whether there’s actually a viable alternative to the liberalism we’ve come to know, even with its weaknesses.

Laura A. Sandefer describes a radical new form of K-12 education in Courage To Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, she describes why she and her husband wanted to start a new school, why it doesn’t have teachers or grades or classrooms in the traditional sense, and what she’s learned about education since founding Acton Academy almost a decade ago.

He was the first modern Republican, says Robert W. Merry in his new biography, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Merry argues McKinley is more important than most people recognize; that his lack of recognition is partly the fault of his colorful successor, Theodore Roosevelt; and that McKinley pioneered a form of “non-colonial imperialism” that holds lessons for American foreign policy today.

We’re still feeling a fateful year’s repercussions a century later, writes Arthur Herman in 1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Herman explains why 1917 was such a big deal, how Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson were alike, and how the election of President Trump may mark the end of an era they began.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Meijer tells the story of this Michigan Republican and how he moved from being an anti-New Deal isolationist in the 1930s to a world statesmen in the 1940s–all the while regarding himself as a true conservative.

A 21st-century Manhattan Project lies at the heart of The Quantum Spy, the new espionage novel by David Ignatius.

In a 10-minute conversation with The Bookmonger, Ignatius explains the potential of quantum computing, the rivalry between the CIA and the intelligence services of China, and why spies enclose the truth in”a carapace of deceit.”